that football game

in the past I've watched those who watch the games; they come in droves and drove from hundred miles of away to take our parking spots and set out their tailgates in our backyards with their Mitt Romney bumper stickers. Go Hoos Go. Wahoowa. Ray ray, ray, UVA, UVA. ugh. why is this such a big American pasttime? surely there are better ways to pass time.

and so time passed and the seasons passed and the semesters passed with them and I passed classes but not the players, they make bad passes or something; well I am sure they pass classes but pass games they do not. and remember that one time in second year when USC flew past our asses and laughed at our 7-32 margin, and some week after I was passing by the stadium and it took two hours to pass halftime and the clock kept stopping and the ball wasn't going anywhere. and so I gave the game a pass.

but not if you want to be sociable; they dress up guys in ties and girls in pearls and each home game Sunday the crowds would pass by our residences and the facebook feeds would explode with photos of friends in amazing clothes in crazy crowds of tens of thousands.

but not if you want to be sociable: be a man, man. nighttalk consists of bartalk, and bartalk either has pickup lines, or whether the Redskins will pick up that title or whether the Pats will pick up their failing dynasty and though in a bar they may go on and on and on about players' statistics, don't you go all otaku about indie film, science or art, because that would just be dorky.

in Iowa the summer sun shone high and I grew tan and the prairie grass ran yellow and the World Cup played in South Africa and someone told me they couldn't care much for [international] football, because [real] American football's like chess. oh really? I wouldn't have guessed because I play chess, and it doesn't have heavy brutes in armor and athletes in university busses behaving like there's no one else on them but as time passed I could see how you could appreciate stopped clocks and devious plays and maybe the American pasttime is some sort of celebrated chessboxing

but I could never care for the football games until around this time in November where I ate my fifth helping of mashed potatoes, chicken adobo, ginger-roasted turkey and sticky rice and we sang to four guitars and the Virginia - Florida State game was on and I cared because I liked people and I cared towards the end when we rose up to cheer ensemble or hold our hearts in our mouths collectively agape and we made that touchdown 14-13 oh with a minute to spare but oh Florida still threw devious plays of provoked fouls and incomplete passes and two field goal attempts but oh we won we won-- screaming screaming the room is crazy we hold hands and sing the Good Ole Song. Go Hoos Go. Wahoowa. Ray ray ray, UVA UVA.